A limited constitutional government calls for a rules-based, freemarket monetary system, not the topsy-turvy fiat dollar that now exists under central banking. This issue of the Cato Journal examines the case for alternatives to central banking and the reforms needed to move toward free-market money.

The more widespread use of body cameras will make it easier for the American public to better understand how police officers do their jobs and under what circumstances they feel that it is necessary to resort to deadly force.

Americans are finally enjoying an improving economy after years of recession and slow growth. The unemployment rate is dropping, the economy is expanding, and public confidence is rising. Surely our economic crisis is behind us. Or is it? In Going for Broke: Deficits, Debt, and the Entitlement Crisis, Cato scholar Michael D. Tanner examines the growing national debt and its dire implications for our future and explains why a looming financial meltdown may be far worse than anyone expects.

The Cato Institute has released its 2014 Annual Report, which documents a dynamic year of growth and productivity. “Libertarianism is not just a framework for utopia,” Cato’s David Boaz writes in his book, The Libertarian Mind. “It is the indispensable framework for the future.” And as the new report demonstrates, the Cato Institute, thanks largely to the generosity of our Sponsors, is leading the charge to apply this framework across the policy spectrum.

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‘God Created Man on Friday’

The title quote is from a language textbook soon to be used in a bilingual Hebrew-English charter school in Florida. Many other religiously themed passages also appear in the book, though they are to be used for translation rather than devotional purposes. Is this constitutional?

Probably, but it’s hard to say. What can be said for sure is that it already has been and will continue to be a source of controversy in the community. This is yet another reason why charter schools do not go far enough on the path to educational freedom.

So long as all taxpayers are compelled to fund a school, that school must dilute its curriculum to a lowest common denominator: it must contain nothing truly objectionable to any organized interest group, or it will be the subject of contention and quite often litigation. For a full discussion of the social conflicts caused by conventional public schools, please Neal McCluskey’s fascinating paper “Why We Fight.”

Fortunately, there is a simple alternative to charter schools that provides freedom of choice not just to parents but to taxpayers as well: education tax credits. As I’ve previously discussed here and here, non-refundable education tax credits do not constitute public funding and can allow universal access to the educational marketplace without forcing people to subsidize education that they find morally objectionable.

So for anyone who is truly concerned with separation of church and state, and with minimizing social conflict, education tax credits are the answer. To claim that these religious and social concerns are one’s reasons for objecting to school choice while ignoring the tax credit solution is either lazy or disingenuous.